~
I stood outside The Flag and drank the water. The heath on either side of me was a deep emerald green. Along the middle of the road, a man was dragging a cart. I moved over to the corner of the yard, away from his eyes, and sat on the wall I used to sit on with my father. Ginger beer. The thought made me retch. The man hadn’t seen me. He laid down the handles and went inside. A skinny dog leaped from the cart to follow him.
~
Aunty Ena still doesn’t speak, but it’s a new kind of not-speaking. It says everything. We’re expecting a visit from the vicar. She cleans the living room, dragging the mattress into the kitchen and leaning it against the stove where the vicar can’t see it. I think he’s coming to talk about the wedding we’re going to have, Joseph and me. Aunty Ena doesn’t say. She guards the house, she keeps close, so I haven’t been able to get out and see him. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything except put my head under the tap and feel the cold water rushing across my scalp. The vicar doesn’t come. Not the first day or the second. Just when she starts to give up, cursing him under her breath, a boy knocks on the door with a message.
It’s over, he says, again and again. It’s over! It’s over!
She locks the door, running behind him, and as soon as she’s gone, I climb the stairs. From the high window, where Mr Stadnik could see the sky, I watch them as they race down the back lane. The church floating in the mist. Birds in a black frenzy round the tower. A boomer’s wail from a far corner of the fen, sounding just like the boy on the step. It’s over. It’s over.
The hair on my head is standing straight as corn, but there are no shooting stars this time, and it’s too late, now, to make a wish. I know without being told that Joseph is gone.
No need to run, I tell her.
~
When I finished the water, I left the glass on the wall. I couldn’t face the barman again. I made a choice – the heathland. It reminded me of Joseph and the church plantation. I picked up my case and walked into the trees.
sixteen
It was Jean’s brother, Bernard Foy, who found me there. His stroll on the heath took an unvarying route, not too far in, but away from the road; it was his habit to walk alone before a meeting, to set himself up for the day ahead.
When you live a life as extraordinary as mine, he said, drolling out the long word, You want an ordinary start to the day.
His ordinary start began early on Friday morning. There was nothing in particular to attract his eye, nothing unusual to remark upon to Jean, he said, who didn’t get out much and liked to hear of the world. Jean was not only Bernard’s sister, she was his housekeeper and assistant. He would describe the mist rising off the lake, a bird arrowing the sky, the zag of a rook, calling in the distance. Bernard was thinking about the meeting that evening, about who would be in the congregation – and what he could find to say to them.
His flock are mostly women, with husbands recently dead, or Missing Presumed. They always think the worst, he said: his twice-weekly gatherings are packed. In the early days, when he still had the Gift, he could see the spirits, rattling along behind the crowd like a string of tin-cans on a honeymoon carriage. The living want to picture their loved-ones in heaven, he said, but they can’t stop imagining other things: a husband lying face down in a ditch, or a son, hanging on a wire. They read reports, and fear something worse than the worst. Bernard, in his Gift, saw auras and haloes; the past rolled out in front of him like the Pathé Gazette. He was their conduit; conveying messages of utmost triviality. For him, he explained, there was only one real message: the fact of everlasting life on the other side. He enjoyed this proof and the skill he had of convincing others. So, when the gift left him, Bernard didn’t stop. Instead, he described himself as their filter, happy to provide relief wherever he could. He assured me he wasn’t a charlatan; he was merely Temporarily Blocked.
Looking over the water, Bernard prepared for the meeting: he considered names. Harry, Arthur, George.
Who is the George outside of life? he’d ask, putting his head a little on one side, squinting into the distance.
That’s my Georgy!
Hmm. Yes, I think it is your Georgy. Be patient, my love . . . he’s moving close. Rise please, sir. Yes. Georgy’s here with you now.
If the name was not forthcoming, Bernard employed other methods; nothing too strange, no jewels secreted under a floorboard, no dark secrets, and certainly no pain. Flowers would often solve the problem.
Why do I see roses? he’d say, to a swoon of raincoats and hats. Or, staring blankly above their heads,
I can see the letters BB – or is it RR? Show again please, sir. Do show again.
Bernard used his gift wisely; it’s just that, these days, nothing would come. So many dead, and no one moving across. He imagined a waiting room filled with men, patiently standing in line.
The threshold is treacherous at the best of times, he said, narrowing his hands into a small gap, as if I would see them there, in the space between. He lived with the hope that the backlog would clear.
And then Bernard had a vision. He saw an apparition across the still water, floating on the mist. He told me how he saw me raised up from the ground. I tell you, I was standing there, on a patch of muddy grass, the water at my feet. He said I spoke unearthly sounds. I tell you, I was counting. To a hundred, and back down again from a hundred to one. Mr Stadnik taught me that: how a heart can be broken in many places. I was counting the places.
I would have carried on with my plan, if I hadn’t spotted him, the fat man peering over a frond. I’d been living on the heath for a week. I had seen only one other person in that time, an old man collecting sticks. I avoided him.
Bernard found me before I had the chance to drop myself in. I was going to float like a girl in a painting, through the lilies and into the black; float away to the end of the world. He said he studied me from a distance. Standing there with Aunty Ena’s coat on, and shoes with the toes cut out, and a little green case at my feet. We walked the path together; me dragging my case until Bernard took it, hooking it under his arm. His small talk was easy and soft. Bernard didn’t tell me then about his work. He pointed out the ducks, the clock tower, the numbered pedalos moored up on the far side of the water. They dipped up and down of their own accord, as if an invisible man was stepping from boat to boat.
Someone has disturbed the water, he said, Would that be you?
The reeds were tranquil, the water would not tell.
Each boat was numbered.
Why don’t they have names? I asked.
It’s easier for the man in the tower to call them in, he said, cupping his hands and making a voice, ‘Come in Number Seven, Your Time’s Up!’
He was funny. In another time, not this one, it would have made me smile. I counted the boats. I was shy of him.
Thirteen, I said, for something to say, That’s unlucky.
No, no, my dear, you’ll find there are only twelve.
When we rounded the tower where the boats were moored, we counted again.
You see, he said, Only twelve.
Number Nine was here! I put my toe against the empty mooring to show him the space. The lake was still now, no boats out. Bernard smiled.
You are a Godsend, he said.
~
His hall was brown. There was a clock in a box, and a gilt mirror above an elephant’s foot filled with umbrellas. The light was sucked into the flock wallpaper, the patterned runner, mahogany banister.
Wait here and I’ll get Jean, he said, turning to the deep end of the hall. He cast no shadow; there was too much gloom. He came back with a woman in a patterned pinny. She had her hair cut short like a man, and carefully pencilled eyebrows, which she raised and kept there. She didn’t say, Call me Jean, she said, What now? as if he had brought a dog home. From the sharp corner of her eye, she took me in. She showed me she was taking me in; beginning at my blistered toes with the dirt ingrained, my bare legs, the grass stains o
n my dress. She stopped at the third button down, as if she could already see a baby nuzzled. Not for nothing was she the Spiritualist’s Assistant. Up and down again, her eyes in the corner of her head.
No bags? she said.
Bernard offered up my case. I understood that I was meant to be staying. Like my name, staying made no difference to me. It was just another place.
~
She let me know how she saw through me. Next morning in the kitchen, I sat at the table while Bernard went about his preparations. Jean Foy peeling potatoes, me with the carrots from the garden, claggy with earth; both of us unused to company.
Just pull the tops off for me, the green bits, give them a twist. What was the big attraction down there at the lake, then? Twist and pull, girl. They won’t bite,
looking at me out of the corner of her eye, and me the same at her. She was framed in the window, so all I saw against the light was a sharp silhouette, like a cameo brooch. The back of her was closed, the ties of her pinny criss-crossed and knotted tight. A potato mooned in her hand,
He thinks you have something,
scrubbing the potato under the tap; and in the silence that came back,
He thinks he will make something out of you. He thinks you are a find.
She said it sharp, find, as if it were a knife. I smoothed the green fronds of the carrots, trying not to think of angel hair, or smell the earth, like a slow ache, rising off them. There were lilies on the water, and a face peering over a fern. I didn’t know how long Bernard had been watching, what he had seen.
Jean filled a saucepan and carried it to the table. She set it down heavy in front of me, the water spilling over the sides, and went back to the sink to say the rest.
God knows what. Slip of a girl with not a pot to piss in. How old are you? Sixteen?
Nearly, I said.
But he thinks you can help him, you know.
A pause. I was supposed to ask a question so that she could tell me how. But she wouldn’t look at me and I didn’t care. She had to ask, because I didn’t care at all about helping. I didn’t care about anything. Joseph had flown, my grandfather had gone; my father could be anywhere. I was no one to anyone; that was all that mattered. Curiosity got the best of her.
What was it then, what you did?
The water in a pool on the table, like a lake. What did I do? The water holding itself to the surface, shivering, then soaking away into the grain.
What impressed him, I mean.
As if reading my mind.
We counted boats, I said, rubbing green between my fingers.
And?
And there was one missing that I thought was there. Number Nine. I must have counted them wrong, I said.
Wrong, she said, You counted them wrongly. But Bernard counted them rightly? Right?
She turned at last from the window and smiled. It was a lit smile, to show me the joke. I nodded. She took the carrots from my lap, and began twisting the heads, pulling out their hair.
We’ll find out then, shall we? Go into the parlour. Come back and tell me everything you see.
~
I knew only three rooms in Bernard’s house: the kitchen where Jean gave me supper the night before, and where the next morning I watched and tried not to ruin the vegetables and was told not to touch anything and to make myself useful; the bedroom which was off her own bedroom, where her instructions to me to
Be quiet no tossing about
had me sleepless and desperate for the lavatory; and the bathroom, with its monstrous bath and giant basin ringed with black specks.
I couldn’t find the parlour for doors. Jean made a funny face, then laughed.
My master’s house has many rooms, she said, opening the furthest one and nodding me inside,
Everything you see, child, five minutes.
I came back and told her.
Marble fireplace, a photograph on top in a black frame, a settle under the window, a pair of fire dogs—
Tell me what you saw in the photograph, she said.
Mr Foy sitting in a chair with a beautiful woman behind him.
She looked at me steadily now.
A beautiful woman, that’s what you see? With dark eyes and long dark hair?
Yes, I said, Very dark hair. Just like my mother’s. Very beautiful.
Quite sure?
Yes.
Go and look again.
I was mistaken. There was no one behind Bernard Foy. I held it to the light. There was no one. Jean came to find me in the parlour, took the frame and placed it carefully back on the mantelpiece.
That was Bernard’s wife. She’s dead. And they don’t have a Number Nine on the lake any more, she said, The boat sank. The boy drowned.
~
That night, she came into my room.
You don’t need the Gift to see what’s up with you, she said, When is it due?
I couldn’t say. I didn’t even know I was due anything until my aunt told me, and then I was on the train, and in disgrace. Jean spanned her hand across my stomach and stared at her fingers, as if they would give her the answer.
Not so far gone, she whispered, Not too late. That why you ran away?
I wanted to tell her then about being at the lake, stepping in to drown myself. How the water lapped my shoes. When it stilled, I saw inside it: the girl, looking back at me from underneath, like a premonition of what was to come. But Jean wasn’t the kind of woman who understood about future ghosts; she knew only about the ones that were already dead. I told her I didn’t run from anywhere; that I was sent away, in shame, for loving a boy, for wanting him to love me.
That’s enough of that talk, she said, the hard edge back in her voice, Best keep it to yourself. And Bernard doesn’t know, mind – pointing a warning finger – So don’t go telling anyone. It’ll be our secret.
you
Sometimes, over the years, you come back. It can be anywhere. You like to take me by surprise, you like to lie in wait. I’m standing on the edge of the pavement, watching for the man to go green, or I’m listening to that woman in the doorway of the bingo singing a song, or I’m simply walking, as I do, thinking of nothing, and you’ll appear. You come on the air. A branch of a tree making ribbons of the light. Early rain, washing you clean from the brick of a church wall. A particular bar of soap that people are keen on holds a residue of your scent. I follow them; I lose you. I can’t tell what the smell is: something warm. Earth is in it. Sleep is in it. Love hides in the gap between finding and losing. I don’t know why you keep coming back. It makes me broken.
seventeen
I am born standing on a chair! I am in a new life, with new people. I am new as a sapling, and like a new thing, I must put the pain behind me. No. I have no pain; that was someone else, some other person’s life. Winifred Foy is their niece, just arrived from the country. Winifred Foy is who I am. I have a marvellous talent. I am their Godsend in a grey flannel dress. I’m going with them tonight, to the Meeting. I am learning a new set of rules. And a language.
You stay close by while we greet them, says Jean, pulling back my hair. She flattens it against my scalp, smoothing it down with her hand. I’m sitting on the chair now, in front of Bernard’s desk, which is covered in what Jean calls her Beautifiers: a mottled tin with grease marks round the lip, a hairbrush and hand mirror made of horn, a comb with a pointed end, a grey rubber cap, a dish of dusting powder.
Keep still! she says, pulling again, She used to love it when I did it for her, she says, with a backward nod at the mantelpiece, She used to say she was in Heaven!
She means Bernard’s dead wife, the one I saw in the photograph, with the long black hair. The one who wasn’t there.
Mine’s too red, isn’t it? I say, remembering Mr Stadnik’s remark to my grandfather, It’s Telltale.
It’s red all right. But that’s the least of your worries. That’ll be telltale in a couple of months, she says, prodding my lap with the end of the comb, And what’ll you do then
?
Do? About what? I say, trying not to think.
You can’t pretend it’s not there, she says, Girls get put away for less.
Like the girls in Bethel Street House all those years ago. Brown pinafores, grey-faced, wandering aimlessly round the rose bushes. Jean bends sideways, looks at me.
Don’t worry. We’ll get you sorted out, she says quietly, sliding the comb between her lips.
How?
She lifts the wig, places it like a crown on my head,
Be careful with this, now, she says, ignoring my question, It belonged to her, you know. There. Want to take a look? Standing back to survey her work, Jean holds up the hand mirror for me to inspect myself. Inside the oval, Snow White looks back at me.
That’s better, she says, Got rid of the pikey in you, that has. Look like any of us now.
What’s a pikey? I ask.
The word is sharp in my mouth. I’ve never said it before, but I’ve heard it often enough.
Never you mind that, says Jean. Now remember to watch everything I do tonight – prodding me again – And I mean everything, she says.
Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Be polite. If anyone asks, you’re my niece. You’re Winifred Foy And don’t scratch!
~
In Jean Foy’s dress and a cardigan smelling of parma violets, I’m shivering in the shade of St Giles’ church. We’re early, the caretaker has yet to bring the keys. When he comes, he jangles them in front of him, but says nothing. He doesn’t even look at me.
It’s a lovely evening, says Jean, to no reply. We follow the caretaker, not into the church itself but to a corrugated hut down the far end of the churchyard. There’s no sign on the door; nothing to give away what happens. The man makes a show of unlocking the door, sighing and swearing under his breath. Disapproval comes off him like steam off a drayhorse. He speaks not one word.
The inside smells of mildew and stale smoke. Busying himself, the caretaker scrapes the benches across the floor, lining them up anyhow to face the front of the stage. He works like a man against his toil. I don’t know why I expected a church. Jean crosses the floor and I follow her into a back room. It’s very cold in here, even though outside it’s mild still. On a hook on the wall is a cassock, with shoes hanging off a pair of trouser legs beneath it, as if a vicar has been hung up to dry.
Remember Me Page 12
